By Graham Matthews
After Cheryl Kernot's resignation from the Senate, the Australian Democrats quickly appointed Andrew Bartlett to fill the casual vacancy. Bartlett, the former Queensland president of the party, told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly that he does not foresee big changes in Democrats policies' in the wake of the resignation.
"The Democrats have always taken a broad approach to things, considering each issue on its merits within a broad philosophical framework", he said. "I don't see much change in that approach." He unequivocally reaffirmed the Democrats' position of support for the federal Workplace Relations Act.
Kernot's resignation does open the way to greater social activism from the Democrats, Bartlett believes. "There's been a huge surge in energy from the membership [since Kernot's exit]. I think it's important to make use of that energy and channel it. We were already realising that we needed to focus more on grassroots activity."
Bartlett refused to be drawn on the future of Kernot within the ALP, and what effect she might have on Labor's politics. "It's very hard to predict what impact she'll have; it's too early", he said. "She could make a difference or she might disappear without trace. I don't know — it's a bit too early to tell."
But the defection to Labor does open up the possibility of a better working relationship between the Democrats and Greens, Bartlett believes. "From all the comments I've seen from the Greens' side of things, obviously they had a bit of problem with Cheryl Kernot so they now have less of a problem with the Democrats because she's not there.
"I don't think the Democrats' structural attitude to the Greens is going to change very much", he said. "We'll certainly be always trying to work with them where possible." A merger of the Greens and the Democrats was not on the cards, however, Bartlett said.
Bartlett was an organiser for the Democrats in the Green Alliance in 1991 — a joint election campaign ticket for the Brisbane City Council involving the Democrats, Greens, Socialist Party of Australia and the Democratic Socialist Party.
The Green Alliance was an early attempt to draw left parties and alternative parliamentary parties together. The campaign succeeded in giving a high profile to progressive politics, but the alliance collapsed when the parliamentary formations withdrew their support.
Bartlett does see a certain role for an extra-parliamentary progressive alliance. "I see a lot of scope for working with all sorts of groups, particularly grassroots groups on specific issues", he said. "I think particularly at the moment the native title area. We're already putting a lot of energy into that area, and perhaps we could put in a little more."
Bartlett forecasts renewed possibilities for third parties in the wake of Kernot's resignation. "Whilst obviously the focus is on building the Democrats", he said, "part of that is trying to break down the two party system and even the way that politics works to exclude people. In doing that, I think the Democrats could benefit other political movements — anything that loosens up the pretty rigid control and corporatist approach that the two main parties have."
Unemployment, the crisis in the health system and the threat of Pauline Hanson could be tackled by taking responsibility for solutions back to individual communities, Bartlett argued. Solutions would come from "providing support (financial or other) to the local level to give people enough opportunity to work out their own solutions.
"Communities work in a whole lot of different ways around Australia. To try and impose one monolithic solution just won't work. We really need to provide the community with more opportunity to work out and then put in place their own solutions", he said.
Bartlett opposes a GST, but not all of the government's tax reform agenda. "We do believe that the tax system as a whole has a lot of inequities in it: whether it's the inappropriate level of tax for those on high incomes or even for those people to avoid tax altogether, company tax evasion, foreign companies in particular, even the way the current wholesale tax system operates in some areas.
"So we think it's important to look at the whole tax picture, but we're very concerned that that's being used as a smokescreen to introduce the GST", he said.